[1316b]
[1]
but not because
owners of much more than the average amount of property think it unjust for
those who do not own any property to have an equal share in the state with those
who do; and in many oligarchies those in office are not allowed to engage in
business, but there are laws preventing it, whereas in Carthage, which has a democratic
government,1 the magistrates go
in for business, and they have not yet had a revolution. And it is also a strange remark2 that the oligarchical state is two states, one of rich men and one of
poor men. For what has happened to this state rather than to the Spartan or any
other sort of state where all do not own an equal amount of wealth or where all
are not equally good men? and when nobody has become poorer than he was before,
none the less revolution takes place from oligarchy to democracy if the men of
no property become more numerous, and from democracy to oligarchy if the wealthy
class is stronger than the multitude and the latter neglect politics but the
former give their mind to them. And although there are many causes through which
revolutions in oligarchies occur, he mentions only one—that of men
becoming poor through riotous living, by paying away their money in interest on
loans—as if at the start all men or most men were rich. But this is not true, but although when
some of the leaders have lost their properties they stir up innovations, when
men of the other classes are ruined nothing strange happens;
[20]
and even when such a revolution does occur it is no
more likely to end in a democracy than in another form of constitution. And
furthermore men also form factions and cause revolutions in the constitution if
they are not allowed a share of honors, and if they are unjustly or insolently
treated, even if they have not run through all their property . . .3 because of being allowed to do whatever they like;
the cause of which he states to be excessive liberty. And although there are
several forms of oligarchy and of democracy, Socrates speaks of the revolutions
that occur in them as though there were only one form of each.
1 Apparently this clause also is an interpolation, or ‘democratic’ is a copyist's mistake for ‘oligarchic’ or ‘timocratic,’ see 1272b 24 ff.
3 Some words appear to be lost here; what follows refers to democracy, cf. Plat. Rep. 587b.
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